Consumerium User Stories

Consumerium User Stories are just story fragments that, when Consumerium Services are real, will also potentially be real. They focus on best cases and worst cases with some elements of, or hints at, visions and threats so that the more emotional elements of the story match our more emotional concerns about the project.

Many people today seek to avoid multinationals, support small businesses. This is due to the understanding that people employed by small and medium size businesses usually feel more fulfillment from their work and less distress then people working for giant multinationals. Inventing a mythical typical figure whose buying habits are average, named "Ed" (for developEd nation), and imagining them shifting slowly over time, is a good common story element.

Ed likes it small

Ed likes to choose products from smaller companies whenever plausible. But with all the mergers and acquisitions, he used to find it difficult to know which they were. He uses Consumerium Services' fairly accurate measurements of company sizes, assembled by voluntary researchers to make it possible to put each company into the right context of companies producing a certain product group thus providing relative company size in a glimpse. Busy Ed finds this gives him a sense of empowerment, and he likes sometimes to chat up girls in the supermarket about the companies that produce the various goods on the retail shelf. He seems like a concerned aware guy, which for a single man is almost as good as a happy dog or someone else's kids in tow.

Producers seek to get more accurate marketing for less, and very often they have both cultural and financial problems reaching the markets that consume what they produce. A typical producer is, statistically, South Asian and either working in a factory or a field. Since agricultural products face the biggest barriers, and are also subject to the strongest regulations and consumer suspicions, let's call our typical producer "Ing" for developIng nation. Ing is quite poor and lives on a few dollars a day and has barely begun to explore export markets.

Ing vs. Julia

Ing's biggest problem is that at the checkout counter when people could learn about how wonderful his rice or wasabi are, the consumer is looking at Julia Roberts' dress instead. This is understandable, but, for Ing it's the only opportunity he might have to make someone regret not buying the stuff he produces, and which isn't advertised.

Increasing numbers of investors seek to invest sustainably and get good returns sustainably - which are closely related ideas - good companies are less subject to sudden shocks when people wake up to the bad things others do.

Ed Sr. stays in touch with potential pitfalls in investments by using aggregate data compiled in the Opinion Wiki/Research Wiki thus staying safe of investing in possibly destructive business ventures which will explode long before his grandkids get to college. Ed Sr. sleeps easy knowing that there is always some researcher awake looking after that your investment does more good than bad where ever it ventures. Socially responsible consumers are glad to reward Ed Sr's socially responsible investing over and over again, putting him first in line for innovative new ventures, e.g. w:Natural Capitalism, social entrepreneurship.